Every time you turn around it seems like another building is going up at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.

Last week’s “mystery” photo from 1957 looks generally east over just a corner of the site that makes up today’s campus. That’s Albert Street running across the bottom and University Avenue (then Dearborn) across the top.

The larger building on the left is the Arts and Sciences Building, which opened in 1954. It’s still standing, now called the Arts “C” Wing. The smaller building north of University Avenue is St. Michael’s Separate School, recently demolished to make way for WLU’s Laurier Centre for Global Innovation and Exchange.

The grand, gabled building on the right is Willison Hall and in front of it is Conrad Hall, a women’s residence. Both are long gone.

What the photo shows are the grounds of the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary and Waterloo College, which granted degrees through its affiliation with the University of Western Ontario. The college was launched in 1924 as an offshoot of the seminary, which in turn was founded in 1911 to educate young men wanting to enter the Lutheran ministry.

The seminary’s first home in 1911 was the house that later became Conrad Hall. It had been the residence of Absalom Merner, one of the principals of the Waterloo Manufacturing Co. Ltd., and later of merchant Edward M. Devitt.

Waterloo College was known as a school where budget-conscious high school grads could continue their studies. “Probably in no other college are costs so low,” an early college brochure boasted.

Several graduates were among the many readers who phoned or emailed to comment on the photo.

“Because of its small size and high standards, many local students received an excellent education there and went on to graduate work elsewhere,” emailed Fred Dahms, a professor emeritus at the University of Guelph.

The Lutheran seminary’s influence was evident, Dahms said.

“Chapel was strongly recommended for all students and occurred for half an hour each morning. In addition to regular courses, everyone took a course in Religious Knowledge and one in ‘Correct Essay Writing.’ ”

Eleanor Brent of Kitchener, a 1958 grad, recalls that the new Arts and Sciences building was the school’s “pride and joy.” Its opening had allowed the college to grow to about 400 students.

Even so, after attending Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate, the college was like “going to a small school again,” Brent said.

Robert Ritter of Wingham, a retired high school principal who grew up in St. Jacobs, enrolled at Waterloo College in 1948 when the first-year class still included several Second World War veterans.

“As freshmen, we were being initiated to the college by the sophomores, but the veterans would have no part of that,” he recalled. Instead, the ex-soldiers began some “reverse hazing” activities.

In those years, University Avenue had yet to be built and there were open fields north of the college between King and Albert streets. To get to school, Ritter would take a Lishman Coach Lines bus into Waterloo, get off on King Street at Bricker Avenue, then walk west on Bricker and north on Albert to Willison Hall.

Several readers who grew up in the area had tales about playing as children on college lands.

“In 1957, I would have been eight years old,” said Bill Dunn of Waterloo, who grew up on Hazel Street and delivered newspapers (the Toronto Telegram and Kitchener-Waterloo Record) to students living in Willison Hall.

Behind that building, Dunn recalls, there was a steep slope “that was the best tobogganing hill around in those days.” To the east on King Street was the Wolfe Cider Mill and apple orchard.

John McVicar of Listowel grew up south of the college on Bricker Avenue. On the empty fields in the photo, he spotted a frog pond that is “the most significant feature in your picture,” he declared.

“Everyone who grew up within several blocks of the Waterloo College campus knew about the frog pond and all the tiny tadpoles. We would catch them in glass jars in the spring and try to raise to mature frogs at home. It never worked for me.”

Patsy Wiebe-Milburn of Kitchener emailed to say she grew up in the house next to Conrad Hall in the photo. Her family moved when her father, developer Abe Wiebe, sold it to the school in 1963.

“Albert Street has sure changed,” she said.

Kathie Must of Waterloo spotted a path behind Willison Hall in the photo that led to a garden gate at the Bricker Avenue home of her grandmother, Maria Aksim.

Aksim, she said, was the widow of an early seminary instructor and for five decades was in some way connected with the school.

To keep this short, we’ll just note that in 1960 Waterloo College ended its affiliation with Western and became Waterloo Lutheran University. Conrad Hall was demolished in 1963 and Willison Hall in 1970. Two campus residences have those names today.

In 1973, Waterloo Lutheran University became Wilfrid Laurier University. Waterloo Lutheran Seminary continues as a graduate school operated by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and a federated college within the university.

Thanks to Cindy Preece of the WLU Archives for her assistance. Thanks as well to everyone who phoned or emailed this week. I only wish I had space for all the stories you had to share.